9.1 Chapter Reading Guide
Alexandra Olsen and Elizabeth B. Pearce
In this chapter, you will be reading about various kinds of safety that are important to families. There is a focus on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and protective and compensatory childhood experiences (PACEs). In addition, violence and abuse will be discussed. Social structures that contribute to the protection of families or get in the way of safety will be examined. Restorative practices and restorative justice will be discussed as ways to create safety, prevent harm, and implement justice in ways that involve both survivors and perpetrators.
The reading is designed to help you meet the following chapter objectives. Preview those to have an idea of where you are headed. You may also want to preview the key terms that follow. These terms will be bolded the first time they appear in the chapter. You can read the definitions here and also in the hyperlinks.
Chapter Learning Objectives
- Identify macro- and micro-level resources that families need to be safe.
- Explain what PACEs are and how these relate to the safety of families.
- Describe what ACEs are and how they impact families.
- Outline how social supports outside families contribute to the safety of families.
- Discuss the importance of quality relationships and their contribution to safety and stability.
- Discuss a wide range of family issues, such as violence and abuse, and how common they are.
- Analyze family safety and stability from an equity lens.
Key Terms Preview
- Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs): traumas that occur in an individual’s life before they turn 18, which include neglect, abuse, and household difficulties.
- Child abuse: the intentional emotional, negligent, physical, or sexual mistreatment of a child by an adult.
- Elder abuse: when older people are deprived of care or intentionally harmed by their caretakers.
- Emotional abuse: nonphysical maltreatment through verbal language.
- Epigenetics: the study of how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work.
- Intergenerational trauma: a phenomenon in which the descendants of a person who has experienced a terrifying event show adverse emotional and behavioral reactions to the event that are similar to those of the person who experienced the event.
- Intimate partner violence (IPV): any incident or pattern of behaviors (physical, psychological, sexual, or verbal) used by one partner to maintain power and control over the relationship.
- Neglect: failure to meet a child’s basic needs.
- Physical abuse: any act, completed or attempted, that physically hurts or injures someone.
- Protective and compensatory childhood experiences (PACEs): experiences that help children develop and promote resilience, even if they also have some adverse or traumatic childhood experiences.
- Rape culture: a society or environment where there is a culture of disbelief and lack of support for sexual violence survivors through normalizing and trivializing sexual violence despite its prevalent occurrence.
- Restorative justice: an intentional way of handling an offense involving three stakeholders within an organization or community: the person(s) who has offended, the person(s) who were harmed, and communities of care and reconciliation.
- Restorative practices: a social science that studies how to build, strengthen, and repair relationships among individuals, as well as connections within communities.
- Sexual abuse: maltreatment, violation, and exploitation where a perpetrator forces, coerces, or threatens someone into sexual contact for sexual gratification and/or financial benefit.
- Sexual violence: making degrading comments, touching in unpleasant means of harm, or addressing a partner in a degrading way during sexual intercourse, which includes marital rape.
Licenses and Attributions for Chapter Reading Guide
Open Content, Original
“Chapter Reading Guide” by Alexandra Olsen and Elizabeth B. Pearce. License: CC BY 4.0.
a social science that studies how to build, strengthen, and repair relationships among individuals, as well as connections within communities.
concerned with equity, equality, fairness and sometimes punishment.
ensuring that people have what they need in order to have a healthy, successful life that is equal to others. Different from equality in that some may receive more help than others in order to be at the same level of success.